Trump’s obsession with Greenland could spark World War III, experts warn

Analyst Tom Nichols warns that Donald Trump’s fixation on acquiring Greenland from Denmark represents his most dangerous obsession, potentially risking a global conflict.

While some of the former president’s personal quirks are considered harmless, such as his apparent dislike of dogs, Nichols argues that other fixations have proven destructive. The analyst specifically pointed to Trump’s adherence to tariffs, which he says triggered international economic turmoil and damaged numerous American industries.

However, Nichols identifies the determination to take Greenland from a longtime U.S. ally as a uniquely perilous goal. Trump reportedly views the island as "huge" and believes it must become part of the United States.

Nichols concluded that any attempt to use force to seize the island would not only shatter America’s most vital alliances but could also trigger a global catastrophe, including the possibility of World War III.

Tom Nichols’ warning represents more than a critique of unorthodox diplomacy; it signals a profound threat to the U.S.-led global order established in the wake of 1945. The prospect of an American president weighing the use of force to seize territory from a NATO ally is without modern precedent, striking at the core of the alliance’s commitment to collective defense and sovereign integrity.

Should such a scenario materialize, the geopolitical fallout would extend far beyond a bilateral rift between Washington and Copenhagen. It would deliver a destabilizing message to American allies from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, suggesting that Washington’s security guarantees are no longer ironclad but are instead subject to the whims of unilateral interest. Such a shift risks a fundamental fracturing of NATO and the broader security architectures that have underpinned global stability for decades.

Greenland remains a vital geostructural asset in the Arctic theater, hosting Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) as a critical node in the U.S. ballistic missile defense system. However, any attempt to assert control through force would constitute a flagrant violation of international law. By engaging in such a pursuit, the U.S. would set a dangerous precedent, effectively legitimizing the use of force by other revisionist powers to annex neighboring territories. Ultimately, this erosion of the rules-based order represents the "global catastrophe" Nichols envisions: the dismantling of the very norms the United States spent nearly a century constructing.

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